Reason I did this is I'm throwing them away so it deters people from accessing the data on it. Sure I could snap them or melt them etc but snapping them can hurt (personal experience) and melting is dangerous as plastic gives off poisonous fumes, and I'm not stupid enough to put them in the microwave...

Broken CD drive + Thumb tack + 30V powersupply = instant disk destroyer (3 position switch on the laser drive motor usually helps with moving the tack up and down too)I screwed up alot of un-needed disks that way.You could always use a BB gun like my older brother...

Its only stupid if you don't know how a microwave works. The wave is a standing wave and the sparks are a charged reflection that doesn't travel any further than a few mm. The only real downside is if you do it too long, your kitchen will fill with melting plastic smell, hence the 1-3 second recommendation.

All I usually do is run a scissor/razor blade over the bottom and it makes the disc unreadable enough.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest.

The CDrecord over-write thing sounds interesting.

I don't see any reason not to put them in the microwave either, except that going across the top with a razor blade seems like it's probably a lot quicker.

The microwave idea seems great for large stacks of discs, it should be able to cook say... 50 at a time with that method... 50 in 3 seconds. I don't know if Andy has 50 disks worth of data to destroy, and if he does, I would be worried to see what was on them =P

All I usually do is run a scissor/razor blade over the bottom and it makes the disc unreadable enough.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest.

The CDrecord over-write thing sounds interesting.

I don't see any reason not to put them in the microwave either, except that going across the top with a razor blade seems like it's probably a lot quicker.

The microwave idea seems great for large stacks of discs, it should be able to cook say... 50 at a time with that method... 50 in 3 seconds. I don't know if Andy has 50 disks worth of data to destroy, and if he does, I would be worried to see what was on them =P

Why not shred???? Its way more efficient. My shredder can shred a CD in about 10 seconds...

I've had bad experiences snapping disk's too, so I know what you mean there.I usually just run a blade over the label side till the data layer peels off in patches, scratching the other side does nothing really, its not that hard to get that fixed.

I'll usually take a stack out to the garage where there's a concrete curb, and place the disc halfway off the curb while securing it with my left foot, and stomping off the hanging side with my right. Takes two seconds. Got a curb handy?

Quality discs usually snap easily, but I had some cheapos once that took some real pounding to break. They were like rubber. Ironic.